Memorandum
To: Mrs. Renee Pay
From: Cheyanne Kimberlin
Date: November 16, 2010
Re: Professional Speaker Analysis
I had the opportunity to attend The 11th Annual Leadership Conference at UVU on Tuesday, October 5, 2010. The title of the conference was “Never Lead Alone”. Larry Gelwix and Dan Clark were the two keynote speakers in the conference. Both were great speakers who really showed the audience how to turn one’s self into a good leader.
Organization
Larry Gelwix demonstrated how to be a great leader through his speech titled “Five Championship Strategies to Sustainable Success”. He taught leadership with five main points. The first is “Go Horizontal”. In many companies, the leadership goes more vertical. There is the person on top of everything, then a long list of people below each with less leadership and authority than the person above them. Those on top feel that they are better than those below and tend to be of less help to them and they look down at them. “Going Horizontal” means getting down on the same level as those you are leading and helping them along the way. Everyone stands next to each other so they can communicate effectively. Horizontal leaders are multipliers and vertical leaders are diminishers.
The second point is “Don’t Play with Snakes”. You need to be honest, and don’t play with something you know is dangerous. At this point in his speech, Gelwix talked about a boy he once knew who found a Rattle Snake in his garage and decided to pick it up and terrorize the kids in the neighborhood with it. Gelwix said he asked the boy if he knew what kind of snake it was before he had picked it up. The answer was yes. He then asked why if he knew it was a dangerous snake, why he picked it up in the first place. The boy angered the snake by swinging it around and running around with it and when it got loose of his grip, bit the boy. Why would you get involved with something you know no good can come from? Walk away from those situations. They will only hurt or slow you down and get you in trouble.
The third point is “Hit the Field Running”. He said that “Attitude and effort are everything”. If at the beginning you are already dragging and saying you aren’t going to make it. If you have a bad attitude then you will not get very far in the game. You have to want success and to do well from the very start. You need to be a positive and good leader for yourself.
The fourth point is “Expect to W.I.N.”. The definition he gave for win is “What’s Important Now”. Don’t worry yourself with things that need to be done later when you haven’t yet completed what needs to be done now. You don’t live in the future, you live in the now. Do things that will make the now more productive so you can accomplish that future goal. When you take a test expect that you are going to do well. When you have to give a speech, expect that you will give a fabulous performance. When you are playing a game, run out on the court or field or approach the chess board expecting to win. You will do your hardest to win if you tell yourself you are going to win. The final point he made was “Focus on the Final Score”. It is the final score that counts. Do everything you can to make it something you want, and something that will make you proud. Doing all of these things will give one some of the qualities needed to be a good leader in life.
For his speech, Larry Gelwix used a topical organizational pattern. He used the five points I spoke of earlier throughout his presentation. He had a PowerPoint that has all five points listed and each was in large simple text. Before introducing the next point he always showed on the PowerPoint as well as spoke the previous points so they would stick in your mind. It reminded me of those poems that say one word in the first line, then an additional word to the second line and another to each additional line. Poems like that are easy to memorize, so it was a great way for Larry Gelwix to organize his speech.
Dan Clark showed us how important it was to be yourself and be your own leader. Don’t be someone else. If you try to be someone you are not and you live your life that way, you will hate yourself and get tired of not having control. You need to love you for who you are and do what you want to do. Do the best you can and go for your dreams. Don’t let a physical disability discourage you from doing what you want. If you try your hardest, you can do almost anything. Don’t be a discourager and don’t let others discourage you or anyone else. You need to give service to others and help those in need. He also said “The number one influence is music. It changes our behavior more than anything in society”.
Dan Clark used a cause and effect organizational pattern. His speech was made up of several random stories about things that happened to friends he knew or made up stories that made his point clear. The stories he told were good and full of meaning. He told stories about how success came to those who didn’t let others stop them from accomplishing their goals. He told how a disabled boy became a great sports player after working hard and not accepting criticism.
Supporting Material
Ethos
Ethos is defined as the source’s credibility, the speaker’s/author’s authority. Ethos is how convincing to those listening, are the things they are saying true? Larry Gelwix demonstrated ethos by telling personal stories from his life as a coach for the Highland Rugby Team. He had over four hundred wins and only nine losses in all the years he has coached his team. His team won nineteen National Championships. I was able to watch the film “Forever Strong” before I went to the conference to hear his speech. I saw how he ran the team and it was amazing what a great leader he is. He wanted not only to make each team member strong in the game and with each other, but he wanted to make them strong forever in their lives.
Dan Clark’s credibility was that he lived what he was speaking. He taught us how amazing it was to serve others and used his own experience serving to prove his point. He used his own happiness in what he was doing to motivate us to do the same. As learned in Maximum Achievement, if something brings someone else success, then maybe if you do it too you will have success as well. I liked hearing Dan Clark’s stories and he put a lot of emotion into all the things he was saying. I think that the meaning comes from the stories and lessons he taught, but I don’t believe that everything he talked about was a personal experience. I think a few of his stories were made up. He gave the very same speech somewhere else and told all the same stories, but they were all changed. His speech was still wonderful and motivating.
Pathos
Pathos is defined as the emotional or motivational appeals such as vivid language, emotional language and numerous sensory details. Larry Gelwix had everyone’s attention. The tone of his voice was powerful. The things he had to say had so much meaning because he spoke them in a way that showed that everything was extremely important to him. He used his hands to emphasize the topics most important to him. He told us that if we apply what he was saying, then we would become “Forever Strong” people in our lives and be successful in life. He repeated this over and over so it would stay in our minds. Everything he felt was really important, he repeated and emphasized a lot. He spoke really slow and firm on those important points, so if we were going to go home and forget everything said that day, we would still remember those things.
Dan Clark had a lot of emotional appeal. He used a lot of sound effects and spoke loudly the whole time he was speaking. He was very into his speech. Instead of standing up at the podium, he stood in front of it on the stage, so he could walk back and forth across the stage acting out his stories. He put so much emotion into his stories; I thought at one point he was going to start crying when he was speaking about the crippled boy who wanted the puppy. I was on the edge of my seat watching everything he did because he was so funny and emotional.
Logos
Logos is defined as the logical statements; did the speakers make sense? Larry Gelwix has personal experiences that he spoke about to support his cause. He spoke about times he has had as a coach that helped him become a better leader and a better person. He told us not to play with snakes because they will bite us. The snake story referred to certain situations people go into knowing it is dangerous and most likely won’t end well. When he told us how horizontal leaders were stronger leaders than vertical leaders, he gave examples of different companies that run each way and showed how the companies who have horizontal leaders are more successful than those who are run vertically.
Dan Clark gave an example of how a young disabled was boy was able to do something no one thought he could, just by not letting others tell him he couldn’t do. He had dreams he was able to accomplish just by trying as hard as he could and staying positive. He was a strong positive leader of himself. Dan Clark’s speech was motivational through stories he told and less from actual facts. He said to follow your dreams and be yourself.
Delivery
Larry Gelwix was a very prepared public speaker who I feel inspired thousands of teens at the leadership conference. He gave us five main points to remember about being a leader as well as a strong person. He knew exactly what he was saying and said it without any confusion or pauses. He looked confident in himself and what he was saying. He used a PowerPoint to display the five points he wanted us to remember. His PowerPoint was simple and there wasn’t anything distracting on it that took away from the point of what he was saying. He spoke professional and treated us all like adults and we all were able to understand everything he was saying.
Dan Clark was also a very prepared speaker. He had to speak last which must have been difficult because everyone in the audience was tired and it was hard to keep everyone’s attention. In order to get attention he stood in front of the podium where everyone could see his whole body. He walked, jumped, and skipped around and made a lot of sound effects and jokes so people would be interested in what he was saying. If he had spoken at the first of the conference I think it would have been better for him to stand at the podium and not jump around as much. Seeing as he was the end speaker and everyone was giddy and anxious to get out of there, being as lively as he was helped hold the attention of most. I was very focused on him and what he was saying. He used a lot of jokes that referred to teenagers that I thought were funny, though stereotypical. The exaggerations he made in some of his stories made me laugh too. He got his points across and was very motivational. He knew what to say and was extremely confident in himself. You would have to have a good amount of confidence to act out your stories the way he did. He was a very good speaker.
Motivation
Enthusiasm is the key to motivation in my judgment. If you are telling someone how to succeed in life and you get up and speak to them in a monotone or like you don’t really care about what you’re saying, then they aren’t going to listen to anything your saying. Larry Gelwix was very enthusiastic with each of the five points he made. He used different tones of voice and spoke powerfully. You could tell he meant every word he spoke. In his stories he would make funny jokes and apply the topics to people of our age. He really motivated me to become a better person. I have always been scared of being a leader, but now I think it might not be as hard as I have always made it out to be. I want to take control of myself and my life and help lead others to success as well.
Dan Clark had so much enthusiasm I don’t think I would know what to do with it all if I were him. He really wanted all of us to feel the way he did about each situation so he acted a lot of them out and his facial expressions were so extreme and sincere to what he was saying. His voice was really loud and changed tones a lot. His hands were all over the place I couldn’t look away in fear that I would miss something funny. I am inspired by what he said but I think that he moved around so much I was focusing more on what he was doing at times rather than what he was saying. Never the less, he had a great amount of enthusiasm in his speech and was very confident and happy.
I am so grateful that I was able to go to the UVU leadership conference. I have always been scared of taking control in certain areas of my life. I want to be the one to leap first. I feel that I have so many motivational ideas in me now that will help me be a more successful person because of this conference. I wasn’t to be stronger and now I feel that with some self motivation I can apply what I learned from these speeches and make my life better.
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